“Monstrous” cycling junction scheme scrapped after locals complained about removal of “iconic” lamp at roundabout

Plans to introduce a cycling and walking friendly CYCLOPS-style junction in Greater Manchester have been scrapped after a residents’ campaign group rallied against the “monstrous” active travel scheme, which they claimed would cause gridlock, kill local businesses, and remove a lamp located on the existing roundabout, which has been dubbed the area’s “last recognisable landmark”.

The scheme, proposed by Oldham Council and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), and funded by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, was set to overhaul a roundabout in Shaw, Oldham, by introducing a new design to encourage active travel and make crossing safer for pedestrians and cyclists, largely mimicking other CYCLOPS (Cycle Optimised Protected Signals) junctions installed across the UK in recent years.

Dutch-style CYCLOPS junctions, the first of which was introduced in the UK in Manchester in 2020, see cyclists and pedestrians cross in parallel, only in reverse, with cyclists on the outside of the two tracks, reducing pedestrian crossing distances and therefore waiting time for drivers.

CYCLOPS junction plans, Shaw, Oldham (credit: Oldham Council)

Oldham Council’s design for the proposed CYCLOPS junction

According to Active Travel England, the executive agency responsible for cycling, walking, and wheeling, the junctions provide cyclists and other vulnerable road users with a protected route across an otherwise intimidating and potentially dangerous intersection, “keep everyone protected”, and are “easy to use”.

However, they have also attracted some criticism in places where they have been installed, with locals claiming that the layout is “confusing”, with the potential to “cause chaos” for drivers, and that the cycling and walking-friendly schemes are a “waste of money”.

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That particular argument appears to have won the day in Shaw, a ward in the borough of Oldham and nine miles north-east of Manchester city centre, where a concerted effort by local councillors and a residents’ group forced Oldham Council to announce this week that the plans had been scrapped, with the local authority admitting that “it’s important in times like this to listen”.

While the “eye-watering” sums involved in the proposed project – which was expected to cost between £3m and £5m – were an expected feature of the complaints, much of the criticism focused on the decision to remove the existing ‘Big Lamp’ roundabout to make way for the CYCLOPS junction, and in particular the “well-loved” landmark that gives it its name.

“This proposal will effectively see the removal of the Big Lamp roundabout and implementation of a four-way junction,” Shaw and Crompton Town Council leader and Oldham borough Councillor Marc Hince said earlier this year.

“All councillors present at the consultation, myself included, were extremely alarmed at this proposal – not only the disruption it will cause but the cost implications and also serious health and safety concerns. We think the scheme has serious negative health and safety risks as this will act as a speedy thoroughfare on to Crompton Way.

“Also, and not of any less importance, is the destruction of a local landmark. The Big Lamp roundabout is a significant landmark as well as a perfectly effective traffic calming measure.

“We will not support such a monstrous scheme and have made our feelings perfectly clear.”

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Liberal Democrat councillor Howard Sykes also said that his party was prepared to fight the project “tooth and nail”.

“Big Lamp Roundabout is such a prominent location and the entrance to Shaw and Crompton from Oldham, and for Mayor Burnham’s Transport for Greater Manchester to even come up with a scheme of more than £3 million is eye watering,” Skyes said.

“To try to destroy such a focal and well-loved landmark, it beggars belief – along with a cycle path that will lead to nowhere, either some cul-de-sac or Kershaw car park.”

Big Lamp Roundabout, Shaw, Oldham (credit: Google Maps)

Meanwhile, resident Beverley McManus, one of the leaders of the 500-strong ‘Supporters of the Big Lamp Roundabout Shaw Oldham’ group, told the Oldham Times this week that “a lot of people were very unhappy” with the plans.

"[The works] would cause gridlock traffic and cut off the high street, which would kill the local businesses,” she said.

“It’s also an iconic landmark for Shaw. I was born and bred here, and it’s been here all my life. It greets you as you’re coming into Shaw.

"We’ve got nothing else in the town to identify us – no town hall, no police station, no baths. Everything’s been taken from us, and that’s our last identifying feature.

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. It was a daft idea from the start. I’m so pleased they’ve seen sense.”

Following this opposition, Oldham Council leader Arooj Shah announced that, despite noting that the local authority believed the scheme would have been “beneficial for our residents”, the active travel project will not go ahead.

“Based the strength of feeling after the scheme landed with the public and key local stakeholders – including the Town Council – we will not be progressing with these plans,” she said.

“It’s important in times like this to listen. We’ll now work with TfGM to see if there’s any way that this money can be repurposed in Shaw or within other schemes in Oldham.”

However, not every Shaw resident was up in arms about the council’s plans, with one noting under the local authority’s post announcing that the scheme had been scrapped that she’d “never noticed the landmark in all the year I’ve driven past it” – while another pointed out that “the lamp isn’t even that big”.

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Of course, Shaw’s lamp-focused CYCLOPS row isn’t the first time that plans to install the active travel-friendly junctions have proved controversial in the UK.

Last year, a new CYCLOPS junction in Cambridge (the second of its kind in the city) came in for ridicule in the national press after the Greater Cambridge Partnership released a YouTube tutorial detailing the layout, prompting the Daily Mail and Telegraph to describe the junction as “so confusing that council bosses have made a video guide explaining how to use it”.

Cambridge CYCLOPS junction (Active Travel England) (credit: road.cc)

The city council’s Conservative group also blamed the junction for “causing chaos for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers alike” and potentially leading to “extra confusion”.

In August 2024, Leicestershire County Council’s plan to introduce the county’s first CYCLOPS junction, “reducing areas of conflict” and “optimising traffic flow”, was also met with a vocal backlash from an outspoken portion of the community who inundated the local authority’s Facebook post about the project with comments about “road tax”, it being “a waste of money”, and concerns that car parking spaces could be lost.

And in January, driving instructor Ashley Neal – who uploads videos to his YouTube following of 150,000 subscribers, often tackling topics concerning cycling and cyclist safety – echoed those concerns about expenditure, claiming that the new CYCLOPS layout in St Helens was an “absolutely awful waste of time and money” and “utterly pointless”.

While he was very positive about the junction from a motorist’s perspective, calling it “super straightforward” and “dead simple” to use, Neal expressed much criticism while cycling across it, largely due to the “ridiculous” wait times, regularly in excess of two minutes at traffic lights.